Conventionally, liquid crystal displays have been provided with various retardation films for optical compensation, for example, birefringent layers formed of a polymer having a negative birefringence. As examples of the polymer having a negative birefringence, polyimide etc. are disclosed in various documents (for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,916, U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,918, U.S. Pat. No. 5,480,964, U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,950, U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,187, U.S. Pat. No. 5,750,641 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,709). However, these negative birefringent layers can be used as an inclined optical compensation film in a liquid crystal display whose display system is a vertically aligned (VA) mode but cannot achieve a sufficient effect as an inclined optical compensation film in a twisted nematic (TN) mode liquid crystal display.
On the other hand, examples of inclined optical compensation films reported to be useful for the TN mode liquid crystal displays include a film containing a low molecular weight liquid crystal that is inclined and aligned in a polymer matrix (see Japanese Patent 2565644, for example) and a film obtained by forming an alignment layer on a support and inclining and aligning a discotic liquid crystal thereon so as to polymerize this liquid crystal (see Japanese Patents 2692035 and 2802719, for example).